Bad Crafts: Things with Mason jars

Once again, this isn't a bad craft per se. You can make any number of charming things with mason jars. In fact, if there is any fault with Mason jar crafts, it's that they are TOO charming. A little too coyly rustic, too contrived, too "Oh we're so down-to-Earth, really, even though we live in a multi-million-dollar condo." You know what I mean?

But no, the real problem with Mason jar crafts is that they encourage - nay, require - people to keep hoarding their jars. Not just Mason jars (like the three-quarter-size ones you get with Classico spaghetti sauce). But all manner of jars, small and large.

I know people who buy boxes of jars at thrift stores and garage sales. Jars and jars and jars, and what do they do? Sit in the garage or a corner of the living room or the back of a closet, gathering dust while their lids quietly rust.

Entire Pinterest boards are dedicated to cute and crafty things you can do with Mason jars, from homemade snow globes to rustic light fixtures. I have yet to find a Pinterest board dedicated to "My collection of unused jars that one day I will deploy in a clever craft, but not this weekend, because I need to mow the lawn." Much less "All the jars that my grandmother hoarded and now we're taking them all to the recycling center after she's dead, because who needs 350 jars?"

I am just as susceptible to this problem as anyone else, except that I hoard jars for "storage." It turns out that I eat a lot of food that comes in jars, from mayonnaise to olives. Those jars stack up pretty quickly if you're not looking. If I use a tenth of my jars as storage, I would be shocked.

It's time we stop kidding ourselves. We're never going to make that cute Mason jar craft. Send your jars off to glass recycling, and free up that floor space!

Updated image courtesy Flickr/dilban